The Horror of The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson Essay

The Horror of The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson Essay

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Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town. Jackson purposely set this tragic event in this innocent setting to emphasize humanity’s cruelty. Using her appalling short story, The Lottery, Shirley Jackson alarms readers with the ironic and suspenseful elements of a seemingly pleasant setting as well as vague characters in order to prove the inhumanity of society.
Jackson provides a specific date making the story believable but still ambiguous, in order to show that this tragic tradition is plausible. Being published in such a modern time as 1948, the story shocks readers because this cruel act seems too far from man’s “civilized behavior” (Friedman, Lenemaja 63). But this assumption shows man’s ignorance of his own capability for this horrible practice; the ambiguity of the story’s time period reveals that this could happen any time or any where. This June date provides readers with a reference point to a time in their own lives, and critic Jennifer Hicks suggests “one can picture herself or himself in similar surroundings” (147). This realism is crucial to the portrayal of this horror story because it creates the disbelief and shock once the ending is revealed (Brooks, Cleanth 30)....

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- Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town.... [tags: The Lottery Essays]

- The 1940’s in America sparked a new era in history concerning violence and warfare. With the end of World War II, the world had just witnessed the most horrific event in all of modern history; the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and further, the Holocaust. Born at the end of the Great War and living through this second World War, Shirley Jackson’s life was filled with graphic imagery of the violence existing throughout her world. Jackson’s husband Stanley Edgar Hyman wrote, “[Shirley’s] fierce visions of dissociations and madness, of alienation and withdrawal, of cruelty and terror, have been taken to be personal, even neurotic fantasies.... [tags: Analysis, Shirley Jackson]

- The 1940s in America sparked a new era in history concerning violence and warfare. The end of World War II brought the most horrific event in all of modern history to be witnessed by the world; the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and further, the Holocaust. Born at the end of the Great War and living through this second World War, graphic imagery of the violence existing throughout her world filled the life of Shirley Jackson. Jackson’s husband Stanley Edgar Hyman wrote, “[Shirley’s] fierce visions of dissociations and madness, of alienation and withdrawal, of cruelty and terror, have been taken to be personal, even neurotic fantasies.... [tags: Literary Analysis, Shirley Jackson]

- Hidden Horrors in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" presents conflict on more than one level. The most important conflict in the story is between the subject matter and the way the story is told. From the beginning Jackson takes great pains to present her short story as a folksy piece of Americana. Slowly it dawns on us, the terrible outcome of what she describes. From the first sentence of the story, The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' The setting in a story helps to form the story and it makes the characters become more interesting. There are three main types of setting. The first is nature and the outdoors, second is objects of human manufacture and construction and the third is cultural conditions and assumptions. These three things help the reader to understand the characters better in Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery';. 'The Lottery'; is started out by being described as 'The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day.'; The flowers are blooming and the children have just gotten out of school for the summer.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- When Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, it struck a nerve with readers. “The story was incendiary; readers acted as if a bomb had blown up in their faces . . . Shirley struck a nerve in mid-twentieth-century America . . . She had told people a painful truth about themselves” (Oppenheimer 129). Interestingly, the story strikes that same nerve with readers today. When my English class recently viewed the video, those students who had not previously read the story reacted quite strongly to the ending.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery 2014]

- Imagine this; it is 9am, the sun is out and even though the children are playing , but before the day is done, someone will find themselves the winner of the lottery. However, it is not the lottery that most are familiar with. In 1988 author Judy Oppenheimer conducted an interview with author Shirley Jackson, the author of ' The Lottery' . In this interview Shirley explained why she wrote the short story in the following excerpt ; " I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives " (Oppenheimer 1988... [tags: The Lottery Essays]

- The Message of Social Responsibility in The Lottery Often, we paint a fairytale view of life for ourselves and our children. Sometimes, an author paints a frightfully realistic picture of life and forces us to reconsider the fairytale. In Shirley Jackson’s story, "The Lottery," a town each year conducts a lottery in which the winner or looser, in this case, is stoned to death by his or her own neighbors. The tradition is supposed to uphold social structure within the town, but in order to comprehend the true meaning of the story you must be able to read between the lines.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- When most people play the lottery today, they think about having wealth. Generally, people who win are happy about it whether they win one dollar or a million. The lottery in our society has grown to support education and it is often worth several million dollars. Usually, the winner of the lottery gains a lot of recognition for the money they win. But what would happen if there was a small town where people held a yearly lottery in which the “winner” was the member of the town who was not sacrificed.... [tags: The Lottery Essays]

- “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson).... [tags: The Lottery Essays]